CNN held another GOP debate last night. This time it was on national security, which basically meant this was an opportunity for candidates to show how willing they would be to go to war for Israel or American posterity and how willing they would be to take away more civil liberties so that they could prevent terror.

One wouldn’t have expected Lieutenant Pike, the pepper spraying cop, to show up. These are basically people whom Lt. Pike would be happy to boorishly serve and protect if they ever needed his service. But, he made a last minute decision to come to the debate and appeared in the wings during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Lt. Pike waited off to the side for the first questions. Ron Paul’s “needless and unnecessary wars are a great detriment” line caught his attention. He thought he remembered those UC Davis anarcho-kiddies saying something like that before he sprayed them. He wondered if he would have to make himself useful after all.

Then, Paul said, “I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty.” You know, what?” he thought. “You’re the unpatriotic one here. Three thousand men and women died on 9/11 so I could go out and pepper spray anyone daring to exercise their freedom of assembly rights. Or, something like that, right?”

Of course, Lt. Pike was wrong. He was offensively botching one of the biggest right wing authoritarian talking points of them all. It is supposed to be thousands of people died fighting terrorists over there so hippie protesters could continue to exercise their right to protest. If only Rudy Giuliani had been on stage to restate this, he would not have been confused.

Lt. Pike focused in on Michelle Bachmann as she began to talk about terrorism. He had never seen a woman who looked so plastic when she talked about not giving Miranda warnings to terrorists and he was turned on. He thought he might have to stick around and invite her to go out after this. He would take her home and ask her to tell her more about this ACLU outfit that the president had been letting interrogate all the terrorists.

During the first commercial break, Wolf Blitzer came over and asked him what he was doing in the wings. He said he was the pepper spraying cop. Blitz said there wasn’t any need for that here. Blitz walked away.

Lt. Pike was about to holster his canister when he received the word from an assistant on stage that he should stick around. The older and kind-of lanky libertarian doctor might need a good pepper spraying if he gets too excited about civil liberties, he was told.

He waited. And waited. And waited. He waited. They were now going on about foreign policy, something he didn’t care about. His concern was people trying to draw attention to themselves in public and make scenes usually about some injustice or inequality. He was to remind them of their place in society by stepping out and unleashing a stream of spray. And, after that, he was to return to his patrolling duty until the next group of people tried to create another scene.

An hour passed. This doctor peacenik sounding pro-terrorist sounding man was getting more time for his views than he could handle. He decided to take matters into his own hands and waddled out on to the stage.

He shook the canister to get it ready for deploying. He was about to let it rip.

The crowd started to go wild. Even the free market think tankers in the audience were incensed. Blitz had to shoo him off the stage.

Lt. Pike headed back to the wings. He was asked to leave. He headed down a hallway and out. He told himself he would one day get the man he was about to pepper spray but tonight he would have to just let it all go.

As he exited, the debate was wrapping up. He heard someone on stage say “our biggest problem is right here at home. And you can see it on every street corner. It’s called joblessness.”

Lt. Pike knew. But, so long as he was around, he could pepper spray anyone who thought they had some entitlement to a job and could no longer keep themselves in order. That, he thought, meant he was a part of helping to maintain national security.

No body wants to lose the backing of the police unions.
Any DA that even mentioned it in passing would have real issues at work and getting re-elected. And also for this, no DA wants anything to do with it.

Oh, they’ll get to him. He has brought discredit upon the university and he would have to go even if he did no wrong. But they have to follow procedures or the lawyers get them. I suspect that the trustees would have already fired a half dozen people if not for the procedures.

As for a DA, well, tambershell is right. But it’s bigger than that. If they charge Pike, there’s a whole bunch of cops who exceeded their authority WRT pepper spray who could be charged with felonies. And ought to be.

Boxturtle (If Pike had sprayed Michelle, do you think her expression would have changed?)

I guess, but those issues are all very important to me, and Obama is much worse on every one of them. And I believe Paul is sincere about his positions on those issues. I’m still praying for a viable third party candidate to vote for though.

IANAL, but I suspect that he can’t be sued because police generally have liability exemptions when doing their job. His employer, however, (in this case the university) can be liable for not having him do his job correctly and within legal restraints.